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Football lobbies blitz the Hill

The NFL players union posted some of its largest lobbying numbers recently. | iStock Photo

NFL television blackout rules have been the organization’s prime target in recent months, with the coalition arguing to the Federal Communications Commission in particular that fans who help fund the construction of football stadiums ought to be able to watch games played in them.

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“We’re simply looking out for the public interest,” said Brian Frederick, the Sports Fans Coalition’s executive director. “We feel we’ve gained a foothold now in Washington. What I’ve learned is that the town is about people and getting to know and understand them, and then it takes having a position that’s right and a good sense of what’s fair and just.”

If recent events are any indication, football and politics may grow even closer this year.

Consider that the NFL’s nascent political action committee — Gridiron PAC — raised $485,525 in 2011, new federal campaign finance records show. The PAC, which formed in mid-2008, is largely fueled with cash from team owners and league executives, including Commissioner Roger Goodell.

So far this election cycle, it has donated $386,000 to federal candidates and political committees, including cash to more than 50 federal candidates. They include such notable congressional members as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

While they’re not exchanging cash, New England Patriots wide receiver Chad Ochocinco and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) traded messages in the days before Sunday’s big game between the Patriots and New York Giants.

Purveyors of fantasy football, not to be left on the sidelines, have also formed a political action committee aimed at supporting pro-gambling candidates. The Fantasy Sports Trade Association last year lobbied the federal government for the first time, as well.

And expect politics to pepper the Super Bowl, too, with liberal and union activists in Indiana staging protests over right-to-work laws and abortion rights opponent Randall Terry, running this year as an ultra-long-shot Democratic presidential candidate, fighting — it appears unsuccessfully — to air a graphic advertisement during the game.

I don't care how fancy the rooms are where they do it, how much their suits cost or how much money is involved, lobbying is nothing but buying votes. Lobbyists should ber run out of the halls of our government because what they are doing takes away from the representation of the common people who don't have that kind of money or access to those who have it. Lobbying is a national disgrace and we need to stop allowing it.

If your sports industry feels it needs lobbyist representation, you probably are walking a fine line with ethics anyway.

The BCS is an NCAA-sponsored cartel (and the system denies the potential to make even more money by the way). As for, NFL/Riddell while very popular brands they did ignore years of medical research that show potential for life altering brain injuries. This research wasn't just about just the horrific injuries and concussion-inducing hits, but just years of normal play too. If they want to avoid the impending litigation, the NFL could take a tiny sliver of its billions of dollars in profit and provide lifetime healthcare for the players that built and continue to enhance the league.

The NFL Player's Association is a UNION, which played the Super Bowl in Mitch Daniel's "race to minimum wage and food stamps" State of Indiana, where most workers will need food stamps to feed their families because their wages have been slashed to minimum wage by anti-union "right to work" legislation.

You used to make $20 an hour and could feed your family? Take minimum wage and food stamps now, says Mitch Daniels...you don't need unions. Tell that to the NFLPA.

The Indianapolis Colts will now be playing for minimum wage and will need food stamps.

Mitch Daniels is the minimum wage and food stamp governor (who turned a surplus into a massive deficit and supervised to loss of millions of jobs as Bush's budget director).